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The newspaper industry has been declining for some time now, but there’s still a lot that we as marketers can learn from the failing business and from journalism.

Content Marketing Institute has fully acknowledged that the internet has basically wiped out print journalism, but still came up with some solid pointers that content marketers should take from seasoned paper pros.

Creating multi-purpose headlines, understanding your audience and balancing current writing with evergreen content are just a few of the lessons this article takes you through.

Now then, if traditional journalism practices are still relevant why is newspaper failing?

Listverse.com came up with 10 solid reasons. The top one being the internet.

The rise of the internet completely disrupted the way we seek out information and consume media.

Internet Killed The Newspaper Star You used to be able to find people paying for newspapers everywhere.

It’s the way people got their information and consumed advertising, especially on a local level, aside from TV and radio.

The internet has devalued information in a huge way because it’s now so accessible and virtually free. Folks can no longer justify spending $2 on the Sunday paper.

It’s far more convenient to just pull out your phone and Google literally anything. Or, open up the Facebook or Facebook Messenger app and connect to anyone instantly.

Convenience and accessibility. The internet provides both and this is what people, including your audience, seek out daily.

Perhaps you have a question like this one we got today from a LeadSite user.

All he had to do was drop into our LeadSite-exclusive Facebook group to post this and he an expert answer right away.

Brent has just put together some new info and is wondering what’s the best way to share his guide with his audience.

What’s the most effective way for him to get eyes on this new material so he can show his leads what he can do?

I made this pyramid to help him out and maybe it will help you as well.

Value Perception

At the top of the pyramid you can strategies that present the least amount of value and as you move up the chain, the activities become more valuable. And increase your likelihood of getting leads.

Offering a free video course is more valuable than a blog post and a blog post provides more value than a social media course.

When you’re plotting out how to share new information you have there are three channels you need to consider:

Traffic Source

Lead Source

and

Conversion Source

You need to focus on these three areas, but you can’t do it all at the same time if you want to avoid burnout. So, let’s start with your traffic.

Traffic Source

You are going to generate a lot of traffic through weekly repeatable activities like blogging.

You’ll gain traffic when your blog posts rank on Google and when you share them on Pinterest and Facebook.

Lead Source

When you’re thinking about leads, try to see this as an exchange. People are giving you lead info in exchange for something of value.

This is most directly going to come through information you provide on landing pages. Once someone opts-in, they can then have access to your new homebuyer or seller guide.

Conversion Source

This is probably the most challenging funnel.

Your leads will be ready to convert when they come to know and trust you through the information you share.

So, if you make a guide should you use it for traffic or lead generation?

Ultimately, how much value you’re giving depends on what people will do to receive it.

You’re going to have more success getting lead information by offering a free or paid course than you would from cold calling. You’ll gather the lead information by putting this high-value action behind a landing page.

Here’s how:

Let’s say you want to offer a Guide to Buying a New Home.

To make sure you hit both your Traffic and Lead Source with this, you’re gong to need to do two things:

Create a blog post that is the actual guide

Make a 3-part video course that you can link to a landing page

These videos are just going to be your blog post in video form. You can probably get away with make each section just 5 minutes long.

You’ve now developed a cohesive marketing strategy. And you will see conversion from here because now your Traffic Source (the blog) matches up 100% with your Lead Source (the course).

You’re putting very similar information into different mediums, but the way you choose to share this value will determine its worth.

Your guide is worth more as a video than it is as a blog. And if you take a second to turn that blog into a free PDF download, that too will be worth more than the initial post even though it’s mostly the same info.

If you haven’t tuned into the video above yet, skip to 7:03 to see how I would create these things.

I’m using a LeadSite to write and publish the blog, making 3 landing pages with the Squeeze app and then uploading the free homebuyers videos to series to Youtube. You can publish the videos as unlisted to ensure that the value you’re providing remains exclusive to the leads who are taking action on it.

You can repurpose the heck out of everything to get the most out of each of your marketing activities.

Share a post across social media to let people know about the guide you just published on your blog.

Include a link on your blog to the landing page so folks can access the free video course.

Of course, the success of all of this really depends on you executing well.

Newspaper isn’t selling anymore because folks no longer see the value.

Are you ready to take action?

Here’s a free PDF download of a home buyers guide to use.

You can then go out and make a video course around this and use both of these things to get leads.